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| September 15, 2002 | Sunday | Rajab 7, 1423 |
Moin recalled but Waqar’s extension put on hold
ISLAMABAD, Sept 14: The Pakistan cricket managers, who met here under the chairmanship of Lt Gen Tauqir Zia, decided to recall discarded wicketkeeper Moin Khan for next month’s Test series against Australia.
Moin, who has been out of the team for quite sometime now, is among a list of eight probables submitted by the chairman of selectors Wasim Bari in a marathon meeting held to discuss Pakistan team’s showing in recent tournaments.
The list, apart from Moin, has Saqlain Mushtaq, Taufiq Umar, Imran Farhat, Faisal Iqbal, Mohammad Zahid, Danish Kaneria and Misbah-ul-Haq.
But an official of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), requesting anonymity told Dawn that the probables would be finalised after Gen Tauqir receives the reports from the team manager, coach and the doctor on the national side’s performance in the tournaments played abroad.
The Test series against Australia that was to be played at home but has now been split between Colombo and Sharjah is due to start on October 3 with the opening match in Sri Lanka and the other two in the desert sands of the United Arab Emirates.
Interestingly, the PCB managers did not name the captain for the series. Waqar Younis was earlier given an extension until the ICC Champions Trophy in which Pakistan play Holland on Sept 20. Pakistan are all but out of the tournament after suffering an eight-wicket defeat against Sri Lanka on Sept 12.
Saturday’s meeting, also attended by the Director of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chisty Mujahid, general manager cricket operations Zakir Khan and Bari, decided that coach Mudassar Nazar be asked to discuss the side’s performance with the PCB chairman.
In the wake of Pakistan’s poor run in recent tournaments, the PCB hierarchy discussed the performance of Mudassar and team manager Yawar Saeed but did not make a final decision on their cricketing fate.
Mohsin Khan was appointed as the batting coach of the National Academy while Abdul Raqib was named on the national selection committee in place of Aqib Javed who had resigned earlier. The rest of the committee would remain unchanged with Bari at the helm and Shafiq Ahmed as its member.
A host of other matters also came up for discussion including the captaincy which insiders said would stay with Waqar Younis.
The house expressed satisfaction over the recent triangular “home” series played in Kenya but said that profit from the tournament would be meagre. “We did not suffer any losses from this event but we are expecting only a small profit because this is one disadvantage of playing a home series away,” the PCB official said.
Tauqir meanwhile plans to have a meeting with some senior former Test cricketers shortly in a bid to put the Pakistan team back on track and to seek their opinion on other cricketing matters.
AFP ADDS: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) put on hold a decision to extend the tenure of captain Waqar Younis in the wake of team’s recent poor performance and have summoned coach Mudassar Nazar from Sri Lanka.
“A high level meeting of the PCB did a postmortem of the team’s recent performance and showed concerns of the slump in the form and have asked the coach Nazar to come from Sri Lanka to give a report,” a PCB spokesman told AFP.
“Nazar would come before Pakistan’s match against the Netherlands in the ICC Champions Trophy.”
Waqar was appointed captain until the on-going ICC (International Cricket Council) Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka but is feared to lose the job after Pakistan fared badly in the Morocco Cup, tri-series in Kenya and the ICC event.
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